Liverpool had offered £20 million for Duje Caleta-Car before the Marseille defender’s dream move to Anfield collapsed, as reported by RMC Sport.
One of Europe’s most promising young centre-halves would be forgiven for wondering what might have been as Ozan Kabak closes in on a move to the Premier League champions.
Before Liverpool stepped up their pursuit of the Schalke stopper, Caleta-Car appeared to be the number one pick to reinforce a defence hit hard by the injury-enforced absences of Virgil van Dijk, Joe Gomez and the willow-limbed Joel Matip.
RMC claim that the former Red Bull Salzburg starlet even travelled to Marseille’s Marignane Airport with his girlfriend in the expectation that he would soon be jetting off to Merseyside.
Liverpool had offered £20 million for the 24-year-old Croatian; an international teammate of Dejan Lovren.
But then Marseille walked away from the deal at the eleventh hour.
Perhaps the L’OM realised that, with a section of the club’s ultras making their displeasure known in devastating fashion over the weekend, cashing in on one of their star players without a replacement in mind was not the best idea.
The Mail believes that Caleta-Car was left ‘devastated’ after hearing that, not only had a life-changing move to Liverpool fallen through, but he also was stuck at Ligue 1’s crisis club for another few months.
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